Italian Leader Ordered to Stand Trial

So we picked up on the burgeoning Italian political sex scandal on Friday—just in time, apparently. A judge ruled yesterday that Italy’s premier, Silvio Berlusconi, will go on trial on April 6 on charges he paid to have sex with a 17-year-old Moroccan girl and then tried to cover up his actions.

Berlusconi denies paying for sex with Karima El Mahroug when she was 17. Mahroug, widely known as Ruby and now aged 18, has denied sleeping with the prime minister but has acknowledged that she received 7,000 euros (£5,900, $9,400) from him as a gift after one of his parties.

Mahroug apparently did rather better, financially, by appearing in her underwear in an advertisement on Italian television for a book. According to TNT Magazine, she got 100,000 euros for this bit of work.